


Second Best

by aces



Category: Doctor Who
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-17
Updated: 2010-03-17
Packaged: 2017-10-08 01:55:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/71497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aces/pseuds/aces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who would you call when you were stranded?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Best

"Hello? Harry, is that you?"

"Sarah?" Harry Sullivan's voice sharpened with concern over the line. "Sarah Jane, where are you? I thought you were with—"

"Aberdeen." There was a pause. "I'm terribly sorry to ask this, Harry, but could you come pick me up?"

*

She sat on the curb by the telephone box, dressed in red and white, clutching a stuffed owl with her chin pressed into her hand. Harry pulled up next to her and opened the door. She didn't look up at him. He paused awkwardly, then sat down next to her.

"Hullo, Sarah Jane," he said finally. "I don't suppose I should ask how you are, should I?"

She turned her head to look at him. And then she laughed. And then she sobbed, just a little. Harry frowned and put a hand on her shoulder, hesitating. She sniffed, and nodded once, and leant against him, putting her head on his shoulder.

"Oh, old girl," he sighed, and his arm around her shoulders tightened.

*

"I think it was quite rude of him to leave, just like that, without so much as a by-your-leave," Sarah said indignantly. She was huddled in the passenger seat, still holding the owl, and it was starting to get dark outside the car.

Harry glanced at her. "He never did let courtesy get in his way, did he?"

Sarah snorted and tossed the owl into the back seat, sitting up straight. "He at _least_ could have dropped me off in Croydon like he promised. I don't even have any money on me!"

"Good old English pounds aren't particularly useful when gallivanting across the universe," Harry agreed solemnly.

Sarah looked at him quickly, to make sure he wasn't teasing her, and then she smiled and put her arm around his, never mind that he was driving with it. "Thank you," she said. "I really didn't feel like trying to explain myself to anyone else."

Harry laughed a little. "Nobody else would have believed you, unless you'd called Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and I think he would have taken a very dim view of that."

"Oh, I _know_ he would have!" She widened her eyes, her voice tinged with amusement. "No, no, he would have come because he felt duty-bound and then looked at me disapprovingly, and I just wouldn't be able to handle the mustache without giggling and I would so have hated to laugh at him like that."

"Ahh," said Harry. "So my lack of mustache is what made me your first choice? Excellent. I shall have to remember that in future."

Sarah squeezed his arm, with which he was still attempting to drive, but he didn't mind. "Don't you dare grow a mustache," she told him. "You would just look silly."

"I'll have you know I used to sport a lovely little mustache, and all the ladies told me I looked quite handsome," Harry lectured.

Sarah giggled, and Harry tossed her a wounded look that only made her laugh harder.

"Oh, now look what you've done," she said. "You've gone and made me forget for five whole minutes that the Doctor just abandoned me with barely even a good-bye. And I was prepared to have a good, long sulk, too. A month at least."

"Surely he's only worth a week."

"No, no," and Sarah sounded abruptly serious and sad again, "a month. At least." She let go of Harry's arm and settled back into her own seat, staring out the window.

Harry frowned and tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

*

"Well," said Harry, turning off the ignition. "Here we are. Home."

"Home," Sarah repeated distantly. She'd spent the rest of the drive looking out the window blindly, but now she shook herself and looked around, taking in her surroundings properly. "Home." She smiled a little and turned to Harry. "At least _you_ know your way to Croydon."

Harry resisted the urge to lean across and hug her. Instead he got out of the car, opened the boot to take out Sarah's bags, and walked around to open the door for her. He offered his hand to help her out. Absently, she took it, reaching back inside for her owl.

He walked her up to the building of flats and waited patiently while she fumbled through her things, digging out keys she hadn't used in a while. And then he walked her up to her flat, even though she told him he didn't have to, and he dropped off her things in the front room after she opened the door.

Sarah dropped the owl on the sofa and looked around as if trying to remember if this was the way her flat was supposed to look or not, if this was the way the world was supposed to look or not. Finally she turned back to Harry and smiled at him, the way she'd always smiled at him, the way she smiled at most everyone in her acquaintance. "Thanks again, Harry," she said, coming up to give him a hug. "You really are too sweet, you know."

"Will you be alright?" he asked when she stepped back and he resisted the urge to step forward and hug her again.

"Of course I will," she said. "Look, I'll ring you in a couple days, after I've gotten resettled, shall I?"

"I'd like that," Harry answered, smiling down at her. "And if you don't, then I shall ring you. Think of it as an ordinary, routine check-up. I could even make a house call, if you like."

Sarah laughed and pushed him toward the door. "When I call we can decide if I need another appointment," she retorted, holding the door open for him. Just as he was about to pass out of the room, she stayed him with a hand on his arm. He looked at her inquiringly. She impulsively leant up to kiss him on the cheek.

"I _will_ call," she said. "I—I think I need to talk. You know. To somebody who _knows_."

Harry squeezed the hand she still had lying on his arm. "It's alright, old girl," he whispered.

Sarah Jane's face tightened, and then she grinned too brightly. "I thought I told you to stop calling me that," she said with a mock-glare.

Harry held up his hands in surrender. "I do apologize," he said, "old girl."

Sarah lightly slapped his arm and pushed him out the door. "Good _night_, Harry," she said pointedly.

He'd rushed out after her phone call, and so he had no hat to doff at her. "Good night, Sarah Jane," he said simply instead and waited till she closed the door before walking away.

Outside, he paused and looked up at the sky thoughtfully, obscured by buildings and streetlights and clouds.

"Doctor," Harry Sullivan said aloud to nobody in particular, "wherever you are, I think you are a complete and utter imbecile."

He drove home.

*


End file.
